Now that it’s cold, we have found that Smutyanka’s batteries get depleted pretty fast from sitting outside, so we’re considering installing some quick-disconnects on the lines. We’re not all that familiar with electronic work and don’t even really know where to start with this. Can any of you folks perhaps point us in the right direction?
Adventures Aboard a Soviet Motorcycle
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Hiya, Kelsey. I know you said you were in an apartment, but do you have access to an electrical outlet? When my rig is down for longer than a weekend, I use a BatteryTender Jr. to keep the battery topped off. Check them out at: http://www.batterytender.com/
Otherwise, R&R of the battery, at least on my Ural, is a pain since it is under the seat and behind the air cleaner.
Plus they have one in PINK!
http://www.batterytender.com/pink-battery-tender-plus-12v-at-1-25a.html
We have a battery tender already that we use to keep our constant back-and-forth swap out of our two batteries. Unfortunately, there is no outdoor outlet, and even if there was, our parking is not covered, so it would not do so well in the rain! It lives inside in our spare bedroom.
Ours is in the same place (it’s the same on all Urals) and while we have changed it so many times that we can now swap a battery in about 5 minutes, if we had some quick-disconnects for the line, we could just bring the battery inside with us at the end of the day to keep it from being out in the cold.
(Also, I’m going to politely assume the pink remark was sarcasm. I’m about as un-feminine as you can get and still have boobs.)
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Hey yall, I met you at the tank farm event. I finally got my M72 delivered. I’ve been having a great time learning the ins and outs of riding it. I was wondering if I could get your advice on dealing with a few issues. I have a peculiar slow leak on the left side and occasional shift issues.
As for your battery issue, I think I read somewhere about running the battery leads to the trunk and keeping the battery there for convenient removal.
LK
A slow leak of what? Oil? Fuel? These bikes are not entirely sealed, so leaks aren’t all that uncommon. Make sure not to leave it out in the rain, or you’ll be emptying out quarts (no exaggeration) of water out of the engine and transmission.
How many miles are on the bike? If your bike hasn’t been ridden much, or has new gears inside, it may take you up to 10,000km to get the shifting right. On most Urals, folks say that they have major difficulty shifting (stamping on the pedals, lots of grinding, etc) until you hit about 8,000km on the clock. Then again, Urals are generally loud shifters in general. The gears on most aren’t 100% perfect, and they have a tendency to grind. The joke is that if your bike doesn’t sound like you’re hurting it when you shift, you should stop driving because something’s probably wrong!
What you’re thinking of re: the battery is actually what is called a “Total Loss” system. Most Urals have utter shite alternators, and many folks remove them entirely and opt to purchase a deep cycle marine battery, put it in the trunk, and run the leads over to it. You can drive for about 12 hours on one with one charge, so it’s not a bad option if you have a bad alternator and don’t do a lot of long-distance stuff. Before we figured out that we have the good, if under-powered alternator, we looked into it. For right now, we’re just trying to figure out how to splice in some quick-disconnects into the existing lines.
I get a fuel leak off the choke after running for a while. The leak stops if I open the choke up, but resumes when I turn it back down. It doesn’t seem to affect operation, at least as far as I can tell. I add some Mystery Oil partially out of superstition and hopefully to ease operation of moving parts. The bike is a 1953 M72, so I have no real way of knowing the true mileage. That one really stumped the goofs at the DMV. The meter says 20K+ KM, but who knows how many times it’s rolled over? Oh, as for the shifting thing, it seems to be loose and sometimes I stay in neutral instead of shifting to 2nd. The suicide shifter works, but that foot pedal seems sketchy.
With all the trouble you guys seem to have with your bike, did you have any trouble getting it inspected?
LK